5 things that set BDEX apart

Customer data drives so much of our commerce. The ability to collect and track information on buying habits, online search activity, and past purchases, as well as personal and demographic data such as location, age, gender, occupation, and marital status, means we know more about consumer activity – and consumers themselves – than ever before.

And while there are many data companies and various sources out there, BDEX’s platforms and services work in a different, better way. Here are four things that set us apart:

1. Real-time targeting

BDEX offers market-driven information with consumer scoring, customer purchasing information, and real-time data based on recent Internet search activity and purchases for everything from airline tickets and cars to apparel and furniture. We also have to ability to collect data via Point-of-Service (POS) systems from brick-and-mortar stores, as well as geofencing technology, a location-based service that uses GPS, RFID (radio frequency identifiers), Wi-Fi, and cellular data to track stores that consumers have visited.

This information is gathered the moment a prospect starts shopping, allowing you to target individuals who are already in the market for your product or service. You can create personalized messages or even develop new offers that speak directly to customers’ needs. No matter your business or industry, we have data that can help you reach your target audience at the very moment they are looking.

2. Accurate, specific, and processed data

One problem within our industry is the overuse of data. Many companies collect or buy the same data from the same sources, so information simply gets passed around. It often comes in a variety of files and formats that must be aggregated and categorized, which can lead to errors or significant manual work to find what you’re looking for. BDEX avoids this time-consuming, error-prone method by immediately sorting and identifying the data points that come into our exchange platform to ensure its accuracy and relevance to our clients.

3. Data downloading, uploading, selling, and management made easy

Most data exchange companies that are interested in purchasing your data require you to organize and format this information in a certain way, within a custom set of distinct parameters. BDEX simplifies the process of you monetizing your valuable data with our Platform as a Service (PaaS). Our system eases managing and formatting your data, and can even transmit it to buyers according to their required specifications.

In addition, our Data Download Module allows you to select and download the data you buy from BDEX straight from us – and only in the format in which you need it – rather than deal with an email file or a data set that is non-specific. You can reuse data that was saved from a previous campaign or simply use the latest leads for an entirely new effort. Files are available in CSV or XML formats, which are easy to open and use on almost any device.

4. Cross-device matching

Our data gives you the ability to market to consumers via multiple devices and channels, including email, social media, direct mail, and mobile. We utilize information from more than 75 vetted partners and 400 million mobile-to-email ID connections – matching up different sources with the same consumers on different devices – to help you find and target prospects across different platforms.

5. The BDEX Data Exchange Platform

BDEX manages a complex data exchange that ingests real-time info from disparate sources and integrates them – and it has access to unique data from our partners who contribute to the platform. This means our clients get unique, highly-targeted, and actionable marketing information that they wouldn’t otherwise have access to. The BDEX Data Exchange Platform features real-time data collected from over 700 million device ID connections and more than 900 billion data signals.

Call us at 917-410-6616 or send an email to info@bdex.com to start putting this information to work for your business.

See how quickly you’ll be able to gain valuable insight

These days, it’s impossible to talk about marketing without mentioning data. We now live in a world where almost everybody has information somewhere online, and smart organizations know that most of it is readily accessible.

It used to be difficult for businesses to gather detailed data on their customers, but that’s no longer the case. In fact, one of the biggest issues now is the opposite: there’s just too much of it. You can easily collect pages and pages of demographics, past behaviors, and numbers, but then there’s the matter of wading through everything in order to find the stuff that’s relevant to your business. And when you do find what could be useful, it may be outdated, incomplete, or too vague.

The key to using data effectively is specificity.

It’s not enough anymore to get a general idea of the wants and needs of your customers; painting them with a broad brush won’t give you the results you are looking for. But knowing what individual people are interested in buying can immediately give you the most fruitful leads, and this is where our Taxonomy Explorer tool can be a huge asset.

How the Taxonomy Explorer tool works

At BDEX, we have more than 900 billion data points businesses can use. While that’s certainly a lot of data to sift through, our Taxonomy Explorer tool makes it simple to find detailed and pertinent information. This allows you to locate your ideal customers while saving time and money.

Unique users

The first thing to think about when utilizing the Taxonomy Explorer is what type of unique users you’re looking for. You can search for people through email, mobile devices, browser cookies, and postal addresses. You can choose one, all, or a combination.

Industry

The next step is selecting an industry. We have more than 300 industries to pick from, and you can also put in a search term to narrow down the results. For example, let’s say that your business involves something related to kitchens. Choosing Home/Kitchen from the list – with every user category selected – brings up a total dataset class of over 74,000.

Digging a little deeper

Okay, so now you’ve got 74,000+ possible people to target, so you’ll want to whittle this number down to find your ideal customers. Just keeping the Email box checked immediately cuts the list to about 17,000. If you’re interested in using direct mail for marketing purposes, you’ll see that around 10,000 of these consumers have postal addresses you’ll be able to get. For strictly mobile purposes – both AAID and IDFA – that number goes back up to just over 39,000.

See what your customers are up to in real-time

One of the biggest benefits of this targeting is that you can learn about individual search and buying habits as they are happening. For example, if certain individuals buy a cookbook online, you will know about it immediately. And, if you sell cookware, you can right away serve them an ad or send a promotion for your products. Real-time targetingwill get you on someone’s radar exactly when they’re in the buying mood.

Find customers wherever they are

In addition, through cross-device matching, you can keep tabs on buyer behavior across all of their devices, including computers, tablets, and phones. This also includes other avenues, such as browser cookies, email address, and postal address. No matter what they’re doing or where they are, you will be able to find people who are most interested in what you’re selling.

Take ourTaxonomy Explorer tool for a test drive

Whatever industry your business is in, our database is almost certainly full of people who would make great customers. Test it out here, and for more information, please contact us.

Making sure you get the best data

Finding a company to provide data services has never been easier. There are dozens of them, all just waiting to provide you with consumer data. Neustar, Acxiom, Infogroup, etc. But some of these companies try very hard to sell customers data that they don’t want, that they don’t need, and they can’t even use.

“Philip” runs a computer shop in Pennsylvania. He is trying to get a bit more foot traffic into his brick-and-mortar store, so he decides to send out some direct mail, or perhaps try to target some online advertising. In order to do that, he contacts a company that provides consumer data, so that he knows whom he is advertising too.

Unfortunately for Philip, the company he chose lumps data together that he doesn’t necessarily need. Now he has to sieve through a wide range of data about consumers just to find consumer data from the zip codes he cares about and the type of people he cares about. Further, that data probably doesn’t have actionable insights that indicate a prospect is actively looking for computers or related products – meaning they may not even be a prospect at all. And now he has a lot of useless data and doesn’t even know it until he uses it and gets no response – and this is data he spent his hard-earned money on.

The company he bought it from, of course, does not care. They wish to sell as much data as possible, regardless of the custom, personal experience they might be able to provide. And why should they bother providing such an experience? After all, they own more data than they know what to do with and have incentives to sell as much of it as possible.

Luckily, an alternative exists in the form of BDEX. BDEX specializes in providing a subscription model for data collection, allowing customers to buy only the data they want and need and none that they don’t. Philip can purchase data about consumers in Philadelphia that are looking for his products without having the hassle of sifting through information he doesn’t need. More than that, he’s getting more than just the data he would have with a single company. He’s getting access to the data available from many, many companies and sources.

This is because BDEX is partnered with about fifty major data providers, including Neustar, Acxiom, and InfoGroup. Customers using BDEX’s subscription plan get access to all the data these companies have licensed it to use. That means that subscribed customers get access to many of these companies’ benefits without having to build a relationship with them, and without paying for unwanted data – making their purchase truly customizable.

This access allows BDEX to aggregate data from discrete sources, filter them, and organize them in ways meaningful for the client. Ultimately, this piles up to 900 million mobile devices, 1.3 billion email addresses, and 220 million U.S. postal addresses, all part of the vast network providing data. This data is provided via purchase history, mobile apps, websites, supermarket clubs, geofencing, credit card providers, and more. Of course, not every customer needs to use all of this data. They can pick and choose what they want to receive in their subscription.

These fifty major data providers allow BDEX access to data of varying kinds. The core data comes in the form of consumer behavioral data, geofencing, audience intent, and demographic personal data. All of this is mined from sources like those mentioned previously and can be used in all sorts of marketing. These myriad sources provide a diverse quality and quantity of consumer data, ensuring that there is something valuable in it for any business. This turns BDEX into a marketplace where the best data can be selected and purchased.

This diversity of sources also gives a company an advantage against their competition. If every company in the area is using the same source of data, they will all be advertising to the same consumers. However, companies with access to more varied data, from more varied sources – along with actionable, real-time behavioral data that indicates a prospect is ready to buy – can both narrow things down to an efficient list and often target consumers whom others do not have access to.

All of this is readily available in a simple subscription model, without the need to interact with third parties or go through the hassle of sorting through unwanted data – saving you time and money, and vastly boosting the impact of your marketing efforts.

How data insights from BDEX led directly to increased car sales

One of the biggest challenges for businesses is identifying people who are ready to buy their product. This can be especially difficult for companies that still rely on physical stores and showrooms in which customers need to go offline to shop – and this was the dilemma faced by Maher Chevrolet.

Old methods just don’t work anymore

The marketing formula for car dealerships used to be simple: Stock a lot and showroom with shiny vehicles and make sure people passing by can see the low, low prices and beautiful cars. But nowadays, it’s not that easy to attract customers. For one thing, passersby may not even look up from the road or their smartphones. And if they do, they might just do a quick online search to see if, in fact, those low prices aren’t just a little lower somewhere else.

Maher needed a new approach to finding the right customers

A fixture in St. Petersburg, Florida, for more than 30 years, Maher Chevrolet contacted BDEX with one goal in mind: to find new ways to identify customers in their area. This included all channels, both digital and physical.

How BDEX helped Maher identify ideal buyers

Through our Data Exchange Program, BDEX has over 900 billion data signals and more than 700 million device ID connections. This enables us to take real-time data from computers, tablets, smartphones, and other devices and turn it into actionable opportunities for sales. In addition to their online vehicle searches, Maher was able to get other relevant information related to potential customers, including when their car leases were expiring.

The data we offered didn’t just pertain to the online world. Through the use of geofencing, Maher knew when customers visited competing dealerships within a 25-mile radius. Not only did this show exactly who was ready to make a purchase, but this also gave the dealership details about the shopper’s current vehicle, as well as their contact information.

What were the results?

With brand-new insights into the real-time behavior of customers, Maher could stop wasting time on trying to attract just anybody and instead focus on the most promising leads. Over a three-month period, BDEX provided the dealer with hundreds of actionable leads.

As a result, Maher sold 99 cars in three months that were directly related to our data.

Increase your car sales with actionable data from BDEX

While your dealership may take pride in its lot full of gleaming vehicles, the best way to find people who want to buy them is through the smart use of actionable, real-time data. To learn what BDEX can do for you, contact us.

It’s all about having the right data – and knowing how to use it

Fall is the time for retailers to really start thinking about the upcoming holiday season. Because so many companies depend on strong sales at the end of the year, they have to be sure their marketing campaigns are on point.

To get a glimpse of what we can expect this year, let’s take a look at some numbers from last year courtesy of the National Retail Federation:

174 million people in the U.S. shopped from Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Monday

51 million shopped exclusively in-store

58 million shopped exclusively online

64 million shopped both in-store and online

People who shopped both in-store and online spent an average of $49 more than the in-store-only shopper and $82 more than the online-only shopper

63% of smartphone owners used mobile devices to make holiday decisions

29% of smartphone owners used their phones to make purchases

The average amount each person spent over the 5-day period was $335.47

The highest average amount was $419.52, which was spent by people age 25-34

Additional stats show that for Black Friday, more than 46 percent of digital revenue came via mobile devices, which was up over 18 percent compared to 2016. However, most of the shopping that day still takes place in actual stores. Multichannel Merchant reported that while 66 million people shopped online, 77 million went to stores to make a purchase.

Millions of people are shopping in the run-up to the holiday season, giving retailers a huge pool of potential customers. But how do you find the ones who actually want your goods?

Instead of just devising a marketing strategy based on predictive data and hoping it reaches your ideal customer, wouldn’t it be nice to know exactly who that person is – and what and when he or she is looking to buy?

What real-time behavioral data and device-matching can do for your retail business

Your business probably utilizes data in its marketing, but it’s very possible that it just isn’t that useful. A lot of the data being sold has several inherent problems, such as being way too broad and sometimes outdated. But this is never an issue with the data BDEX offers. With more than 900 billion data points, we can help you figure out exactly who your best customers are.

The data allows you to check out the shopping behavior of someone in real time. This means that if they’re looking at a golf club online, for example, and you happen to sell golf clothes, you’ll know it – and you can immediately hit them with an ad or offer. Plus, with device-matching, you can follow the same shopper across multiple devices and adjust the messaging and the vehicle accordingly.

How to find customers in the real world

While it may seem as though all shopping now takes place online, remember those stats mentioned earlier. Brick-and-mortar businesses are still important to many people, and there’s a tactic that can let you know which stores they’re visiting: geofencing.

Geofencing uses software to draw a virtual line around a specific area, followed by telling you when a mobile device enters this boundary. This is beneficial in a couple of different ways. First, you can see which stores someone goes to, including a competitor. And when this information is matched with real-time behavioral data, you can see what they’re buying or perhaps thinking about buying. Your business can then send out its own offers for competing or complementary products at the exact time a prospect is looking to make a purchase.

If you’re working on your holiday marketing plan, BDEX wants to help you have an even more profitable season. To learn more about what we offer, call us at 917-410-6616 or send an email to info@bdex.com.

The indicators that your ideal customer is actually ready to buy

In part one of this series, we discussed ways to identify your ideal customer. That’s the first, basic step in targeted marketing.

This is insufficient to refine a campaign, however – not by a long shot. True, highly-targeted marketing is all about reaching out to individuals who are actually ready to buy. And there are two subsequent steps in the process to achieve this: using predictive analytics and then real-time indicators that point to an imminent purchase.

Predictive analytics are last-gen targeted marketing – but still useful

The last generation of targeted marketing relied heavily (almost solely) on predictive analytics – which looks at data to spot behaviors, milestones, and demographics that are correlated with a purchase decision.

The data will let you know that “Craig Smith” is about to finish paying off his car loan. A predictive analysis suggests that he might be interested in buying a new car. However, Craig may be just as likely to keep it in order to avoid making car payments. What if there are 10 million Craig Smiths out there? Not many of those individuals will shop for a new car. In fact, statistics might indicate that only about 10% of them will do so.

Predictive analytics takes the data describing your ideal customer – which may be, say, 50 million people for a national business – and refines it down to those who may be looking to buy based on historical data; in the above case, the 10 million individuals who just paid off their car loan.

Predictive analytics can use a variety of factors for different decisions. As another example, an individual who just moved and forwarded their mail may be in the market for new furniture for a new home. Individuals who bought a tablet computer five years ago could be ready for an upgrade. Consumers who completed the minimum contract for cell phone service might be interested in another provider with a lower rate. Perhaps someone recently had a baby. They would need diapers, clothing, baby supplies, and even furniture, such as cribs or changing tables.

These predictors are very useful and represented a massive step forward for targeted marketing. But they are still inefficient when used in isolation.

Predictive analytics narrowed down the above example list of 50 million to 10 million potential car shoppers – but how many of the latter group will actually buy?

If that number is really only one million, nine out of ten marketing dollars are wasted if you reach out to the whole group. This is why predictive analytics must be combined with real-time data that features actual indicators someone is shopping for a new car.

This is where targeted marketing gets real.

What signals that a customer is actively looking to purchase something?

Indicator #1: Online activity

One of the easiest ways to know whether someone is in the market for a product is through their online activity. Whether the person has visited cars.com, realtor.com, or a site that offers free diaper delivery, these indicators can be tracked and collected as real-time data.

Indicator #2: Visited a physical location

Technology can tell us when a customer has visited a physical location, such as a car dealership or a retail clothing store. It’s done via geofencing, a location-based service that uses GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular data to track where people go within a certain radius. You can even collect data based on point-of-service (POS) systems to find out what customers bought if anything.

The complete targeted marketing process with BDEX

You’ll start the targeting process by defining your customers, and BDEX can help you refine this definition with data. From there, we fuse predictive analytics with the real-time indicators of people who are looking to buy right now. Based on these parameters, we provide you with an actionable list of your best customers as they are actively shopping for your product or service.

In the above example that could represent a nationwide auto dealer, the process moved a list from 50 million to 10 million – and finally down to the one million individuals who are really looking to buy a car.

But that’s just a generic example. The data is often specific enough – in terms of industry, product or service, and behaviors – to narrow down weekly lists to merely a few dozen individuals, in some cases. This means you get a recurring, narrow, andhighly-actionable list of potential customers.

When this list is fused with our Data Exchange Platform (DXP) and Device Graph, it includes contact information as well as the different devices that prospects use in their daily lives.

This gives you the power to reach out to individuals who are specifically looking for your products and services, as well as the means to reach out to them where they are likely to see your message.

BDEX features the first-ever Data Exchange Platform (DXP). The BDEX DXP and DAAS platforms enable companies to acquire impartial, quality-scored, third-party data reaching the right people at the right time like never before. We offer cross-device matching, auto dealership services, DAAS, real-time targeting, and custom segment building that is ideal for any industry, including auto dealers, retailers, brands, agencies, out-of-home, and franchises.